“The way to begin loving anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

– G. K. Chesterton

This is a great way to begin growing (up) as a human being: to begin really reflecting on how fragile we all are, how precarious each of our existences are, how miraculous it is that any of us is actually here now and alive, that that one sperm cell happened to be the one that fertilized our mother’s egg. It’s mind blowing. Incomprehensible. And really reflecting on ideas like these can helps us become more appreciative of our life and more amazed by it.

Coincidentally, one of the ways to become more loving and kind and appreciative of those nearest and dearest to us is let in the frightening thought that they could be lost, that at any time something bad could go down. It helps us to see them as the miracle that they are. It helps us not take them so much for granted. It helps us but all of the petty paltry annoyances into better perspective.

When we become better acquainted with our own and others’ mortality and fragility, when we see things in terms of the bigger picture–that none of knows how long we are here or even why we are really here–then that uncertainty can help us put (and keep) things in perspective, make us more appreciative, sensitive, kind, gentle, attentive, not sweat the small stuff.

“We all have to say goodbye to everything eventually. All of us are here only for the time being, tumbling along as we all are in the river of time, on our way to the endless ocean. We will each wake up one morning and realize that a whole period of our life—our youth, our career, our marriage, our health—is no longer what it was, and has passed. We are vulnerable—intrinsically vulnerable—to sickness, old age, and death. Nothing will save us from this, our common fate. However puffed out our chest may be, however booming that voice of ours, however many tall buildings or stocks we own, we too are exquisitely, excruciatingly exposed to the fact that, sooner or later, our place in this life will be cleared and we will be gone.

“When we remember this, something softens in us. Our judgments soften, our hurry slows down a little, our worries return to proportion. We breathe a little deeper and more meaningfully. After all, every one of us is in the same leaky old boat. Everyone we meet, everyone around us—the wise, the foolish, the saintly, the murderous—all of us alive today are heading together, in one great fellowship, toward the final waterfall—even as we argue or lash out at each other, care for each other, love each other, betray or reject each other, support or affirm each other—regardless of what it is we do or don’t do.

“This is why ours is an exquisite vulnerability. It is exquisite because it is so touching, so life-affirming, when we see through the shell of a person—our own or another’s—to the tender reality beneath. One of the women I pass in the café most mornings was in the local supermarket the other day. We had sometimes smiled in recognition, but never spoken. She always seemed busy and brisk to my eye; in charge of her day and what she was doing. When we bumped into each other in the supermarket I greeted her by saying how colorful she looked in her bright blue shirt. She said her husband had died recently, and it was the first day since then that she had felt a little alive. I am so sorry, I said. She burst into tears and clung to my shoulder, sobbing. The wave of her grief washed through and over me.

“I had had no idea.

“I would never have known.

“She was not in charge at all. She was just trying to do what she could to get through.”

Contemplating these sorts of matters helps refocus us on what truly matters–and those who truly matter to us. It softens our hearts, gets us out of the myopia of the smaller picture.

“If You Knew” – Ellen Bass

What if you knew you’d be the lastto touch someone?If you were taking tickets, for example,at the theater, tearing them,giving back the ragged stubs,you might take care to touch that palm,brush your fingertipsalong the life line’s crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcasetoo slowly through the airport, whenthe car in front of me doesn’t signal,when the clerk at the pharmacywon’t say Thank you, I don’t rememberthey’re going to die.

A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.They’d just had lunch and the waiter,a young gay man with plum black eyes,joked as he served the coffee, kissedher aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.Then they walked a half a block and her auntdropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon’s spumehave to come? How wide does the crackin heaven have to split?What would people look likeif we could see them as they are,soaked in honey, stung and swollen,reckless, pinned against time?

..

“The sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant into their presences a new organ of such properties that every one of these unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as the death of everyone upon whom his eyes or attention rests. Only such a sensation and such a cognizance can destroy the egoism that is now completely crystallized in them.” – G. I. Gurdjieff

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About John

I am a married, 46-year old, Midwesterner, with four children. My primary interest is in leading a very examined and decent and Loving life; my interests that are related to this and that feed into this include (and are not limited to) -- psychology, philosophy, poetry, critical thinking, photography, soccer, tennis, chess, bridge.